The Einstein Pursuit

18

Eklund was confused and more than a little frustrated. He was standing in the middle of his crime scene at the charred laboratory in Stockholm, and yet he was waiting for Dial to tell him what to do, even though Dial had no authority at the scene. He was merely there as an official observer — an observer who was technically Eklund’s boss at Interpol.

Well, not really his boss. More like his superior.

No, that wasn’t quite right either.

The truth was, Eklund didn’t really know what their relationship was, which was why he was confused and frustrated to begin with. Eventually, he decided the best way to rectify the situation was to simply voice what was on his mind.

‘Nick, may I ask you a question?’

‘Of course,’ Dial replied.

‘What’s your role here?’ he blurted.

Twenty years ago, Eklund wouldn’t have even thought about challenging one of the division heads at Interpol. Ten years ago, he would have considered it for a few, fleeting moments before pushing it to the back of his mind and keeping his mouth shut.

But today was a different story.

Eklund had reached the point in his career where nothing mattered more than solving crimes, and if someone wanted to challenge his authority, he would deal with it then and there. It didn’t matter if it was a colleague at his local station, the chief of an elite unit, or the Interpol secretary general himself. One way or another, Eklund needed to know that everyone was on the same page — even if it put his career in jeopardy.

As it turned out, Dial was more impressed than insulted. To him, one of the things that separated good cops from bad was the willingness to ask the questions that needed to be asked, regardless of the person being questioned. Dial had seen far too many good leads go to shit because the investigator’s priority was to keep his job rather than do his job.

‘You want me to get out of your way?’ Dial asked.

‘Not at all. If you want to stay, then stay. I just want to clear the air before anyone starts stepping on anyone else’s toes.’

Dial smiled to lighten the mood. ‘As you know, Interpol can’t run a crime scene. It’s in our charter. I’m here for the sole purpose of making sure the right information gets distributed to all the nations involved. The investigation itself must be conducted by local law enforcement. That’s you, not me.’

Eklund stared at him. He was usually good at reading people, but right then he had no idea if Dial was testing him. ‘You’re staying out of it?’

‘I never said that,’ Dial teased. ‘But it’s your show. I’m just along for the ride.’

‘In that case, I’d like to shift our focus to something else.’

‘To what?’

‘The science.’

‘You think we can learn anything from this equipment?’

Eklund nodded. ‘I think the equipment, the specimens and whatever else remains from their experiments gives us a very good place to start.’

‘I completely agree. Where do you want to begin?’

Eklund checked the equipment list he had been given by the forensics team. It was like reading a foreign language. ‘Do you know anything about science?’

‘Not a damn thing.’

‘Me neither,’ Eklund admitted with a laugh. ‘Let’s find someone who does.’

The Karolinska Institute was located in the Stockholm suburb of Solna, just north of the city. It was one of the most highly regarded medical schools in Europe, and its work in the fields of clinical medicine and pharmacology was regularly lauded by academics around the world. The Karolinska Institute was responsible — through its facility or its graduates — for a full third of all the medical research being carried out in Sweden.

This wasn’t the first time Eklund had visited the campus in search of help. Years earlier he had spent an entire week working in a cadaver lab in order to better understand a case. Back then, he had been attempting to identify the particular weapon being used in a series of grisly murders. He was hoping that today’s visit wouldn’t require a butcher’s apron.

‘Dr Olsen?’ he said in Swedish as he pushed open the saloon-style double doors of the laboratory. ‘We saw the light on and figured that you were working late.’

‘When am I not working late?’ Olsen asked from the adjoining room.

Before they could locate the source of the sound, a wispy beanpole of a man came bounding through the doorway to meet them. He stood six and a half feet tall, yet weighed well under two hundred pounds. His shirt draped over his skeletal frame, and his belt was cinched comically tight, as if it closed a pouch of marbles instead of holding up a pair of pants. His skin was pale — almost white — and his shoulder-length hair was jet black.

Dial tried not to stare. To him, Olsen looked like he belonged on a slab, not in a lab.

‘Dr Alexander Olsen, this is Chief Nick Dial,’ Eklund said in English. ‘He’s here from Interpol’s main office in France to help us work through a case. Chief Dial, this is Dr Alexander Olsen, professor of anatomy here at the university. Though I assure you his knowledge covers a wide array of other topics.’

‘Bonjour. Ravi … de … vous rencontrer,’ Olsen said in broken French.

Dial shook his hand. ‘I’m actually an American.’

‘An American from France in Sweden?’ Olsen said, as if trying to work things out in his head. He stared at Dial for an awkward moment before finally accepting the situation. ‘I assume you’re here because of the explosion?’

‘Unfortunately, yes.’

Olsen turned away and busied himself with a box of specimen jars. They were filled with formaldehyde and a wide assortment of body parts from cadavers. The gangly doctor gave no indication that he was at all intrigued by Dial’s visit. It was as if unannounced visitors from foreign law enforcement agencies were a daily occurrence.

Dial leaned close to Eklund. ‘Is he always like this?’

‘Admittedly, yes,’ Eklund said. ‘I don’t think he gets out much. The bodies are his life, and everything else is secondary. I know, it’s sort of off-putting at first, but you get used to it.’

‘Like I said, it’s your show.’

Dial had met nearly every type of personality over his years of service, and an obsessive scientist barely registered on his intolerance scale. To be honest, what struck him more was the way in which Olsen had dehumanized the corpses. To Dial, every body meant a life lost, a future unfulfilled. But to Olsen, they were simply pieces of meat to be studied. He didn’t disapprove of Olsen’s approach; it was the nature of his job.

‘What do you know about the incident?’ Dial asked. He knew the media had reported the explosion, but many of the details about the laboratory had not been released.

‘I know that more than a handful of scientists lost their lives,’ replied Olsen. ‘People talk. Someone says that an explosion destroyed a lab in Stockholm, and suddenly my phone is ringing off the hook. Half the callers were checking to make sure I wasn’t one of those caught in the flames, the other half were people wanting to know if I knew anyone that was.’

‘Did you?’

‘Not that I’m currently aware of, but these things take time. I’m sure once you have sorted through all the bodies there will be a name or two that I’m familiar with.’

‘Why do you say that?’ Dial asked.

‘Because the scientific community in Sweden is a tight-knit group, and the Karolinska Institute is the center of their universe.’

‘So I’ve heard.’

Olsen looked up from his specimens, suddenly concerned. ‘Wait! Is that why you’re here? To tell me all the people from the institute who were killed?’

‘No,’ Eklund said in a calming tone. ‘We’re here for the science. Nothing more.’

‘Oh, good … Wait! What science?’

‘That’s what we were hoping you could tell us. If we showed you a list of supplies and equipment, could you explain what it might have been used for?’

‘Sure, where’s the list?’

Eklund opened a folder and handed Olsen a sheet of paper. But before he reviewed it, Olsen made a point of putting on his extra-long and way-too-wide lab coat. He obviously thought it made him look intelligent; Dial thought it made him look like Gandalf.

Of course, at this point of the investigation, they could use a little magic.

Olsen studied the list for nearly a minute without muttering a single word. Eventually, he shrugged his shoulders and sighed. ‘I’ve never seen a lab like this. Ever.’

‘Meaning what?’ Eklund asked.

‘Labs like this simply don’t exist. These chemicals. This equipment. It’s like someone took every area of science known to man, put them into a blender, and poured the resulting concoction into this list. To run a lab like this, you would need a chemist, a molecular biologist, and I don’t know — experts in at least a dozen other fields.’

‘Well, we have experts like that at the scene,’ Dial said.

‘Then why are you talking to me?’

‘Because all of them are in body bags.’